Starlit Lies
by Umbrae Calamitas
Summary: Three years after the Ceremonial Duel, Yugi is stargazing, thinking on how he no longer has a reason to exist. Maybe he never did to begin with... character death.


**Starlit Lies**

"_I would you not forget me,_

_But sing a song to remember_

_This past, this past of doom,_

_And I… forever here…"_

~ C.M. Fry

Yugi stared up at the stars that glittered across the dark sky and he thought of how much such a view mimicked his own soul. The sky was black, endless, and empty. Since Atem had left, Yugi's soul had been empty, and it was an endless, dark-hearted feeling that consumed him.

But for the stars. The stars littered the sky, as the unforgiving flood of tears drowned him in the darkness.

Would his head never break the surface, or was he doomed to a life of death, and then in death… what would become of him?

"Atem…" Yugi whispered weakly, still staring at the sky. He wondered… could Atem hear him? Could that great, beautiful pharaoh see him still here on Earth? Was his yami watching him, even now?

_No,_ Yugi assured himself. _He's home. Stop kidding yourself. He has no more time for you. _

Three years. It had been three years.

And still, Yugi remembered every heartwrenching moment as though it had happened only moments before.

As part of his soul, his very best friend, was stolen from him.

No… no, not stolen. He left… he left of his own will.

_Oh, Atem… how could you? _Yugi silently begged the uncaring night. _How could you leave me, Atem? How could you leave me… when I needed you the most?_

But the night gave no answer.

Yugi looked down at his chest. At one time, he would have been greeted by the friendly glitter of the Millennium Puzzle. However, that item had been taken from him, just as his yami had been taken from him.

Just as the solitary purpose for his existence had been taken from him.

He had existed to be a host to a three thousand year old pharaoh. And now that said pharaoh had passed on, there was nothing left for him here.

"I asked for friends," he whispered, staring again up at the stars. "Friends that would never betray me. The puzzle promised it." A tear slid down his pale cheek. "But the puzzle lied…" He let his eyes slip closed, forbidding the stars from swirling in a blurred mass in his eyes. "Yami…"

Yugi's amethyst eyes opened again, looking down instead of up. Down toward the glittering headlights of cars passing on the streets thirty stories below his feet.

Tears welled within his violet eyes and slid silently down his cheeks. The wind whipped around his body as he stood on the edge of the building, staring first up at the stars – stars that he could never reach – and then down at the cars so far below. Everything in his life had always been pulling him down. He would never reach the stars.

But the steady, unwavering lights of the cars could be mistaken for stars when he peered at them through tear-drowned eyes.

And he could reach them, couldn't he? Always being pulled down, he would be pulled right down into their promising light.

"Yami," he whispered into the bitter night air, "you promised you would always be there… that you would always catch me."

He stepped off of the building's edge and felt the wind rush up around him. Cold air bit like knives at his flesh, but he ignored the pain. He ignored the tears that streamed from his eyes. He ignored everything around him as he searching within himself for the warmth that he longed to feel again.

But it wasn't there.

Maybe it never had been there.

Yugi closed his eyes against the bitter pain deep within his soul, far more potent than any physical pain could have ever been.

"Yami," he whispered weakly, as the ground rushed up ever-closer. He opened his eyes to stare at the blurry stars down below him, swirling in a promise for freedom from all of this pain. Freedom from the betrayal that could only be granted when you placed your heart in another's hands.

"You lied…"

**Umbrae: **I am under the distinct impression that I had a different idea for the ending to this fic, and that it was actually going to be longer. However, I still kind of like this one, though it is horribly angsty. ^^ Oh well! Hope you liked it! Please review and, as always…

_Live long. Live well. Write. Read. Dream. _


End file.
